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Project Planning
Microsoft® Office Project 2007 provides invaluable help in the planning process of project management.
It might seem daunting when you realize that, as a project manager, you're responsible for such a tremendous balancing act throughout the life of a project. However, this responsibility can be broken down into four manageable processes:
- Planning the Project: The outcome of this planning process will be a workable project plan and a team ready to implement the project.
- Executing the Project: At this point, you have your project plan in hand. The tasks are scheduled and the resources are assigned.
- Controlling the Project: In the controlling process, you monitor all task activities, compare the plan to actual progress, and make adjustments as needed.
- Closing the Project: Before moving on to the next project, Office Project 2007 can help capture key knowledge and project details that can be leveraged for future projects.
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Planning the Project with Office Project 2007
You can create a new plan in File on your toolbar, or by selecting an available template. The Office Project 2007 workspace is called the view, and the view that appears by default is the Gantt chart–other versatile views are also available. Once you have created your new project, Office Project 2007 helps you:
- Create project phases, milestones, and task lists
- Estimate task durations
- Link tasks with their appropriate relationships to other tasks
- Enter any imposed deadlines or other date constraints
- Set up the resources and assign them to tasks
- Establish resource costs and task costs
- Adjust the plan to achieve a targeted finish date or budget amount
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Executing and Controlling the Project with Office Project 2007
You give the word, and the project moves from planning to the execution and controlling process. In the executing stage, Office Project 2007 helps you:
- Utilize multiple reporting formats to share progress of your projects
- Save a baseline for comparison and tracking purposes
- Update actual task progress
- Compare variances between planned and actual task information
- Review planned, actual, and scheduled costs
- Adjust the plan to respond to changes in scope, finish date, and budget
- Report on progress, costs, resource utilization, and more
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Closing the Project with Office 2007 Project
In this final step in the process, you have successfully fulfilled the goals of the project and it's now complete. Before moving on to the next project, though, you want to capture the knowledge you gained. Office Project 2007 helps you:
- Capture actual task duration metrics
- Capture successful task sequencing
- Save a template for the next project of this kind
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| In Project Server and Project Web Access |
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Professional
Edition Planning |
New Features in Office Project 2007 provide for planning and tracking throughout the lifecycle of a project, and also ensure that information is readily available whether you're working in Microsoft Office Project Professional 2007 or Microsoft Office Project Web Access.
Server-side scheduling allows changes to project information, and updates can be made from within Office Project Web Access.
Proposals and activity plans allow you to create a pre-project plan including anticipated resources which can be converted over to a project once it is approved.
You can import simple project or task lists from Microsoft Windows® SharePoint® Services 3.0. |
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Office Project Professional 2007 offers enterprise managers the ability to manage dependencies, create deliverables, and check status of cross project dependencies from within Office Project Professional 2007 or in the project workspace.
Office Project Professional 2007 also enables you to create master projects with subprojects reflecting all activities that are being implemented under a specific program in your organization–taking project management to a higher level with greater scope. |
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